I was at Academy and they had the MrBeer refill kits for $6 a piece.
Now i do home brew and thought what the heck and will give these 2 gallon refills
a shot.
First thing I notice is 3.7 abv which is a little lighter than what I am used to.
Then the next thing is there is no boiling of the water with the extract.

How good does these kits do? I plan on doing it the old fashion way and boil it for 1 hr.
Or should I follow the directions?

theres no boiling because its hopped malt extract.



i made a damn good porter with mr beer black tower porter and some specialty grains and aroma hops.



 

Fixed

The Mr Beer kits are flavored extract. They make beer. But they don't make great beer. It is a start.

Levels of brewing
Flavored extract
Extract
Extract with specialty grains/Partial Mash
All grain

All make beer. Extract only can make some damn good beer. But flavored extract kits like mr beer are meh in my experience. Every friend who got one and shared it with me was disappointing. Even they were not thrilled with their beer. Then I offer my equipment and we do a random extract with specialty grains kit and next thing they know they are planning their next brew and buying equipment.

if you tasted it you wouldnt have known it was mr. beer



my mr beer keg is now a small batch brew vessel and will be the bottler for my mead



 

Give them as gifts to try to lure unsuspecting people into home brewing. Mr. beer is the gateway drug.

This.

yep.  i started with mr beer.  after 2 brews in that.. i went to a 5 gallon extract setup..  now im likely going to be converting a coooler to be an all grain tun.



 

It is indeed a slippery slope. I started with a hopped canned liquid malt extract kit and ended up with a double sided reach-in 20+ kegs, fermentation vessels for 24 gallons, plate chiller, keggles, grain mill, buying buying 50lb sacks of grain, and whole hops by the lb.

I've started building a 10-gal batch size electric all grain setup.